Mid-October cards

993 – A map of Friesland from Monique (NL-2112408)

Friesland or Frisia is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient, larger region of Frisia.  Friesland has 646,000 inhabitants (2010) and its capital is Leeuwarden (West Frisian: Ljouwert), with 91,817 inhabitants, in the centre of the province.   In 1996 the Friesland Provincial Council resolved that the official name of the province should follow the Frisian spelling rather than the Dutch spelling, resulting in "Friesland" being replaced by "Fryslân". In 2004 the Dutch Government confirmed this resolution, putting in place a three-year scheme to oversee the name change and associated cultural programme.

994 – Juned from Boogor on Java, south of Jakarta, sent me my first card from Indonesia (ID-72006) and appropriately it was this map.

 Another flag to add to my 'collection' of countries.

995 – Henny from the Netherlands sent me this (NL-2109818) painting of Pieter van Foreest Jordenszn (1521-1597), one of the most important doctors of The Netherlands, known as the "Dutch Hippocrates ".

I’m not sure if I have mentioned but the theme of the Europa stamps this year is postal vehicles.  This is one of the Netherlands ones.

996 – My friend Anastasia in Belarus sent me this great old picture of a postman delivering his mail.

997 – Another from Anastasia arrived the next day – 

 I think envy is one of the seven deadly sins but I go green whenever I see Anastasia's beautiful writing.

This stamp shows the Belarusian puppet theatre.  It is still very popular and there is a festival of students’ theatres in Minsk every year. 

998 – Jarma from Helsinki (FI-1888569) sent me this new Inge Löök card.  Hoorasy.  Don’t fprget you can see all my Inge Löök cards at this link.

999 – Apparently the 9^th October was World Post Day – a fact which would have passed me by but for this card from my friend Monica in Sweden.  This is Sweden’s first post-bus, in 1923, equipped for winter-driving.

The stamps also had a postal theme.